Mill Bay

Yesterday we headed to Mill Bay. This is new territory for Louise and I, but Paula and Bernie had a quick little paddle here at the beginning of the year. We put in under a sunny sky beside the handy boat ramp at the end of the aptly named Handy Road.


Usually when someone says the beach is a minefield, they're are referring to piles of dog poop. (Unless they're talking about real minefields. And just why haven't the world's major powers signed onto the Ottawa Treaty banning landmines anyway? Shame on them. But I digress.)
The launch beach was a minefield of large red jellyfish. This fellow was about 30cm across, and probably would not have liked being stepped on.
We saw a lot of jellyfish in the water after we got going, mostly clear ones, and Louise found a nice red and got all the great jellyfish shots today.


It was just Louise, Paula and I today. Paula is trying a backbone in her Advanced Elements kayak that helps stiffen it to improve performance (insert your own dirty joke here). She said she felt a little faster and also sat higher out of the water, but she wasn't necessarially sure that the cost is equal to the benefit. More testing is required.


Bernie unexpectedly lent me his video camera and it took a little while for me to get hang of it. For some reason it seems that I took a lot of footage of the inside of the camera bag. (I'll work on it this week and see if there's enough usable stuff to make a quick video out of it.) As I fiddled with the camcorder, we paddled through some of the clearest water we've seen in our local area.


I love how the trees grow out over the water, making a canopy over the beach. Look how clear that water is.


We were able to do something George Bush could never do: we found the remains of Saddam Hussein's nuclear arsenal. What it was doing here in Mill Bay is anyone's guess (although I'm sure Cheney and Rumsfled will say they knew the weapons were here the whole time).


We didn't see much in the way of wildlife today. Just the occasional seal popping up. And this guy followed us for almost our entire paddle.


Just a gorgeous day.


Of course, as soon as we turned around to head back, the winds picked up and our flat calm became a little less flat.


But we made it back to the beach.



Trip Length: 10.31 km
YTD: 269.25 km
More photos are here.
The Google Earth kmz is here.

As mentioned, Bernie unexpectedly lent me his video camera. Justine Curgenven I ain't (which is probably just as well because I don't think any of her clothes will fit me), but I did put some of the pieces together and came up with this little video. Not bad for a first attempt by a total amateur!



When in Mill Bay, guests of Kayak Yak eat at Mill Bay 2-for-1 Pizza. Good food, good service, good price. Stop in for a slice.